21 replies to this topic

[Sir Kalthorine]

No, nothing to do with game code here - just a thread in which I thought I would outline some of the driving forces behind wanting to produce the Chrysta mod, and the "Code of Chrysta Ethics" which I hope to adhere to during the writing of the mod. I would welcome any comments on these, or on any other suggestions that I might add to the list!

• There are a few mod NPCs around that seem to dominate dialogues, i.e. the writers tend to have them always coming out on top. I am determined that this will not be the case with Chrysta - she will win some, she will lose some.
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• As a partially formed character at the start of the game, I want the PC to be able to mold her development to some degree to match how they play the game. Chrysta will become subservient and compliant if an evil character wants to manipulate her into becoming his/her slave, but equally will come out of her shell and grow in confidence and ability if a good character wants to nurture her. Although I know there will be a lot of work involved, I foresee writing a few different character development paths for her depending on how she is treated.
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• With reference to points (1) and (2), I still see Chrysta as having a strong and well-defined personality which will mature and develop subtly during the game. She will not be a pushover, and if the PC is not careful to be consistent in the way she is treated, she will react and respond accordingly.
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• One thing that I always liked the way that Planescape:Torment deals with NPC interaction and development was the advanced player-initiated dialogue tree structures that, provided the PC used logic and care based on set experiences in the game, could be used to maneuvre the NPC towards some revelations of self-awareness that would then in turn unlock extra abilities, stat modifications etc. It is my intention that the same happens with Chrysta (as she seems the ideal vehicle for this)
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• I see Chrysta as complementing existing NPCs, not overshadowing them. There will be a lot of banter with existing Bioware NPCs (joinable and non-joinable) and hopefully some of the more popular mod NPCs, but I want her to blend in smoothly and be part of a game, not stick out and become the focus of it (the game is about the PC, after all). If I say that my favourite non-Bioware NPCs which I wish to emulate are Kelsey, Keto and Saerileth, then I hope people realise what I mean.
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• She will not be overpowered. While she will in no way be a "makeweight" in the group, I have a dislike of NPCs with clearly overpowered items, stats etc. I want people to keep her in a party for roleplaying reasons, not powergaming ones.
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• With due deference to my comments in (6), I wanted her to have abilities that would still be useful and would hopefully be unique among mod NPCs. With this in mind she will develop as an equivalent thief/assassin and druid, but with the PC able to direct the bias in class strengths through dialogue with Chrysta as she levels up.
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• While some of the subject material in some dialogues may include mature and adult areas, I am not a believer in excessive use of swearing or overtly sexual content. Chrysta is romanceable, yes, but if you are looking for a "clone sex slave" then you are looking in the wrong place!
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• Fourth-wall breakage is a no-no, and "jokey" dialogues will be kept to a minimum. I am a strong believer in suspension of disbelief, and I am no way as skilled as the Bioware writers were with Jan Jansen in writing jokey dialogues while still keeping everyone focussed on the game.
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• I want the non-romance dialogue/relationship path to be as well-developed as the romance path. I don't want people's experience of the mod to be less than satisfactory just because they either don't want to or are unable to romance her, and Chrysta's ultimate development will not be dependent on whether or not she is romanced.
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• In terms of how best to develop the relationship with Chrysta through dialogue, whether romancing her or not, in my experience with a lot of mods, the player is pretty safe provided that they take the approach of "make sure I don't choose the bad responses". In Chrysta's case, I want the approach to be more "I need to give careful thought about how to choose the good responses" - in other words, make it a challenge to help Chrysta develop in the best possible way. If any less-than-optimal responses are chosen, her character will still progress, just not as well as it might otherwise have done. I want a player to have a real SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT if they manage to help Chrysta attain her best possible destiny.
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• There will be more than an element of puzzle solving and mystery to unlocking Chrysta's past, and as a result helping her come to terms with her future. Clues will be liberally spread around early in the game that point the party in the correct direction to start solving the mystery, and it is up to the player to use their intelligence, common sense and intuition to find further clues and help Chrysta to piece together her past. I love a good mystery!
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• And finally, unlucky 13... My self-imposed deadline is to get a working Beta out at the start of 2006, no matter what happens, and I hope to attract a team of people to help me with the mod that will continually remind me of this and will help me to keep on track whenever I start thinking "oh, hang on, why don't we just..." I am a dreamer with an expansive imagination, and I do occasionally need poking with a big stick to get me focussed on what needs to be done. Any help offered in that regard will be accepted humbly and gratefully!

So, any comments or thoughts are more than welcome

Edited by Sir Kalthorine, 21 April 2005 - 06:37 AM.

[Feanor]

With reference to points (1) and (2), I still see Chrysta as having a strong and well-defined personality which will mature and develop subtly during the game.

Point 3 seems to contradict point 1 and 2...

[Sir Kalthorine]

With reference to points (1) and (2), I still see Chrysta as having a strong and well-defined personality which will mature and develop subtly during the game.

Point 3 seems to contradict point 1 and 2...

Not really...

With reference to point (1), you can be a strong personality and still lose debates. You just don't allow yourself to be pushed around in them...

With reference to point (2), whichever way the PC chooses to guide Chrysta will still result in her personality being strongly defined... it is just that the form of strong personality that develops will depend a lot on the dialogue choices that the PC uses to guide her.

Edited by Sir Kalthorine, 18 March 2005 - 04:38 AM.

[Hendryk]

As regards #1, conversations can be interesting and amusing without necessarily being competitions with "winners" and "losers". Cernd and Jaheira would tend to be very supportive of one side of Chrysta while Korgan, if he tolerates her at all, would at least be an exemplar for the other while Edwin and Haer'Dalis might, respectively, have a fourth and a fifth take on her, none of which (except Edwin's) would involve winning and losing.

Also, no modder is equally familiar with or has equal respect for all the official NPCs. So, to the degree that a mod NPC is permitted to shine too extensively at the expense of the official ones, it's very often because the modder either doesn't know or heartily dislikes the official NPC in question. If you recognize such a situation in your own writing, that's a good time to call for volunteers for the other half of the banter. You would still, certainly, set the framework for it but getting help from someone else who does know and like the other NPC tends to produce a livelier talk on both sides.

[Eon Blue Apocalypse]

This code sounds very promising, I hope you'll manage to pull it off.

[igi]

They all sound fine, but number 13 contradicts numbers 1 through 12

[Hendryk]

As regard to #5, I sort of doubt you will take that so seriously as to under-write Chrysta's story. Still, should you be so tempted, please remember that hardly anyone here would play BG2 again without a new and interesting mod to make it worthwhile. So if the focus seems to you, at times, to shift a bit too firmly to Chrysta, bear in mind that your target audience will be perfectly ok with that.

[Sir Kalthorine]

As regards #1, conversations can be interesting and amusing without necessarily being competitions with "winners" and "losers".  Cernd and Jaheira would tend to be very supportive of one side of Chrysta while Korgan, if he tolerates her at all, would at least be an exemplar for the other while Edwin and Haer'Dalis might, respectively, have a fourth and a fifth take on her, none of which (except Edwin's) would involve winning and losing.

Absolutely, I would say that we seem to be of the same mind on this. I just wanted to reassure people that Chrysta was not the sort to actively seek to "slap down" interjections from other NPCs with seemingly omniscient responses, as I have experienced in some other mods. Not that there is anything inherently "wrong" in having such a strong NPC, as I know a lot of people enjoy that kind of strong NPC and I was not in any way trying to sound critical of that approach. I just prefer a more "give and take", less-combative style of dialogue similar to the kind of situations you describe, Hendryk.

Also, no modder is equally familiar with or has equal respect for all the official NPCs.  So, to the degree that a mod NPC is permitted to shine too extensively at the expense of the official ones, it's very often because the modder either doesn't know or heartily dislikes the official NPC in question.  If you recognize such a situation in your own writing, that's a good time to call for volunteers for the other half of the banter.  You would still, certainly, set the framework for it but getting help from someone else who does know and like the other NPC tends to produce a livelier talk on both sides.

Fortunately (I hope) I do not actively dislike or have any inherent bias against any of the Bioware NPCs. However, there are some who I do have much less experience with than others, so I will certainly be looking to pick the brains of modders who would have had more experience writing for them. Indeed, I look forward to putting a team of volunteers together who can stimulate lively debate on the issue of suitable inter-NPC banter dialogue.

[Sir Kalthorine]

They all sound fine, but number 13 contradicts numbers 1 through 12

Which is why I am hoping people can bash me on the head repeatedly and keep me honest

[Sir Kalthorine]

As regard to #5, I sort of doubt you will take that so seriously as to under-write Chrysta's story.  Still, should you be so tempted, please remember that hardly anyone here would play BG2 again without a new and interesting mod to make it worthwhile.  So if the focus seems to you, at times, to shift a bit too firmly to Chrysta, bear in mind that your target audience will be perfectly ok with that.

Thanks for that Hendryk. I guess what I am trying to say is that while she might have a lot to say and do, and a few decent length sub-quests along with it, I would be uncomfortable if her story seemed to be overshadowing <CHARNAME>'s own quest, i.e. the Bhaalspawn Epic will never feel like it is being pushed into second place.

[fallen_demon]

I'm looking foward to this more and more, paticularly 1,2,7,10 and 12

[Lord Ernie]

This should be very interesting indeed. Good luck on each and every one of your points, Sir K. Especially the last one.

[Sir Kalthorine]

While your 'code' is nice, what you lack are realistic ways in which you are going to accomplish this commendable goals. Ie:

I will develop 5 personality profiles for non-romanceable version of Christa. They are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Each separate path will be comprised of minimum 10 dialogues with player character and minimum 32 banters with Bioware NPC (the total of 50 dialogues with Player1 and 160 banters). These personalities will 'kick in' after five generic talks which will be the same for all paths and allow me to determine which way the PC pushes Chrysta (the total of 55 dialogue with Player1). There also will be 32 banters with BioWARE NPCs that are independent of Chrysta's personality choice. For romanceable Chrysta I will develop additional 20 dialogues for each of the personality path (the total of 155 dialogues with Player1) ... etc.

This would give me at least a solid idea of what are you going to do and how much time it will realistically take you to do this mod.

Thanks for showing the interest, Ashara, it is much appreciated

I do have more detailed plans for how Chrysta will be implemented, but they are posted on the Workroom. I have made a conscious decision to try and keep as many of Chrysta's "secrets" under wraps as possible so as not to lessen her impact when she finally appears. I apologise if you find this a little frustrating, but I hope you will understand my motives once you finally see what we do with her.

If it helps, in terms of banters alone I can tell you that we have decided on the final drafts of over 120 lines of banter already, and we only started writing them three days ago

Edited by Sir Kalthorine, 05 April 2005 - 02:33 PM.

[Sir Kalthorine]

Cool, in complex branching like this, planning is often one of the most interesting aspects of the project

If I'd have read this before I started the mod I'd have said you were mad... but it is a helluva lot of fun planning these things, isn't it?

[Azkyroth]

Code looks good; I may have forgotten to mention this. When I have a chance I think I'll adapt it for my work on Arkalian (how's that for flattery?).

[Porthas]

*hits Sir Kalthorine gently with a stick over #13*

[Kaeloree]

Sir K is in the desert at the moment IIRC, so thats a fair problem... ;P